Rachel lay in bed. She was deep in thought. A tall girl with long blonde hair
and pale blue eyes. Anyone looking at her would have seen just another pretty
girl. She was much more than that.

Rachel was an Animorph. One of a few people with the power to Morph. The
ability to become any animal they touched. Rachel remembered when she had
been given this power, and how. That was another story altogether.

There is life out there. Alien life. Intelligent life. One of the most
powerful alien races out there is the race of Andalites. Creatures that
ressembled the centaurs of earth mythology. Highly intelligent and
extremely adaptable. The Andalites had advanced technology. Spaceships
and all that. They were at war with the Yeerk empire. The Yeerks were a
race of sentient parasites. They looked like everyday slugs. Slugs that
infest a Host body by entering it through the ear canal.

The Yeerk takes complete control of a creature's body. Total control. The
only time the Yeerk leaves the body is when it needs to feed off Kandrona
rays in the Yeerk's natural environment, the Yeerk Pool. A Yeerk has to
feed every three days. The Yeerks have taken over certain alien races.
Races like the worm-like Taxxon and the anthropomorphic Gedds. Their best
conquest was the Hork-Bajir race. The Hork-Bajir are a race of seven-foot
tall reptiles with a lot of strength and speed. They are the best fighters.
Ever.

After taking over the Hork-Bajir homeworld, the Yeerk set their sights on
Earth. That's what they do. They move from world to world in search of
natural resources and host bodies. When a world's resources is depleted,
the Yeeks move on to another. That's why they came to Earth. The Andalite
military has had a lot of trouble with them.

Basically, the Andalites have superior technology but they are not exactly
a very aggressive race by nature. The Yeerks are like sharks. Predators.
Dangerous. Relentless. Ruthless. The Andalites are more balanced. Good and
bad and every shade in between.

An Andalite prince named Elfangor came to Earth to warn humanity about the
impending Yeerk invasion. He gave the power to Morph to five Earth children.
That's where Rachel came in, along with her cousin Jake, and their friends
Marco, Tobias and Cassie. They were the five children Elfangor Semitur-Corass
of the Andalite peoples gave the power to. He wanted to give humanity a
fighting chance. The ability to fight the Yeerks. Right after Elfangor gave
the power to the kids, he was killed by Visser Three.

Visser Three is the only Andalite-controller in the universe. Basically,
when a Yeerk takes control of the body of a creature, the creature becomes
the Yeerk's slave. A controller. There are millions of Taxxon-controllers,
and Hork Bajir-controllers. The Yeerks have secretly taken over the bodies
of thousands of humans and thus have many, many human-controllers. The
Yeerks have taken over the body of only one Andalite. Alloran Semitur-Corass.
A war-Prince of the Andalite people. Only one Yeerk has the power to Morph.
That's Visser Three.

Visser Three is the supreme commander of the Yeerk empire's armed forces.
He spearheaded the Yeerk invasion of Earth. He has commanded the Yeerk
infiltration of the world's governments, businesses and associations. He is
a ruthless and despicable creature. He has a lot of power. He is feared and
respected throughout the galaxy. The Yeerks are out to enslave the human
race. They don't want to risk open warfare so they enslave humans covertly.
You just never know who is a Yeerk or not. When a Yeerk takes over a person's
body, it gains all of the person's knowledge and stuff. A Yeerk can live
inside the body of any human being, and act like them and sound like them.
You can never tell who's a Yeerk or not.....until it's too late. These things
have infiltrated the government and the Armed forces and the corporate world
and all that.

They are everywhere, and no one seems to know it. Mankind was slowly being
taken over by evil parasitic aliens and did not know it.

This was the source of Rachel's frustration...

She and her fellow Animorphs were out there fighting the Yeerks and no one
seemed to care. They were out there risking their lives while other people
slept. The Animorphs had become the Earth's first, last and only line of
defense. The only people who knew about the Yeerk invasion. This put a
tremendous strain on them. They were only kids. Teenagers, to be exact.
Rachel, her cousin Jake and their friends Marco and Tobias. Recently, they
met a new ally. Aximili Esgarouth-Isthill. The younger brother of their
benefactor, the deceased alien prince Elfangor. Aximili was a young Andalite
warrior. He had the Morphing power, too. He came and was rescued from the
Yeerks by the Animorphs. He assumed human form and now aids them in their
daily battle against the aliens.

Aximili lived in the woods in his natural Andalite form. He stayed away from
humans except when the Animorphs called him to help in battle. Aximili shared
a home in the woods with Tobias. Tobias was one of the Animorphs. A boy who
had gotten trapped in the shape of a red-tailed hawk. He had forgotten one of
the rules about morphing. You could become any animal you touched but there
was a time limit. If you stayed in a form other than your own for more than
two hours, you were trapped in that form forever. All of the Animorphs's
lives changed radically since they became what they were but none as much as
Tobias. He was no longer human. He was a bird. He still had his human
houghts, feelings, emotions and memories. All the things that make a human
being. Yet, he still resided in the body of a bird.

Recently, Tobias had been re-given the ability to Morph. He could Morph
again. He could become human again. But the Morphing technology saw his
red-tailed hawk's body as his real body and now treated his human self
like a morph. If Tobias remained in human form for more than two hours,
he would be trapped again.

The other Animorphs were human beings that become animals through the power
of amazing technology. Tobias was different. He was essentially an animal
that became human through the power of technology. That's what set him apart.
The Animorphs could call themselves human all they like, that's what they
were. Not Tobias. Not anymore. Not ever.

Rachel couldn't sleep. She stepped out of her bedroom and stood on the roof
of her house. She looked around. She saw her neighborhood. The quiet and
peaceful place she had known since childhood. It looked so....normal. She
shuddered, and it wasn't from the cold. The world was like her neighborhood.
It had no idea that an evil alien empire had taken it over. At all. The
governments did not know. Neither did the armies and the police. Not the US
government, the United Nations or Interpol. No one knew. It was up to her
and her fellow Animorphs to save the world. She almost laughed. Never in a
million years would she have thought herself capable of being a warrior,
much less one with super-powers in a battle against an evil so great that
sometimes she could not sleep.

Rachel almost screamed when she noticed the old man standing beside her. An
old man whom she could see right through....At once she knew what he was.

The Ellimist.

"Greetings, Rachel." He told her.

Rachel just stared. She was scared shitless but determined not to show it.
"Hey." she said.

"What do you want?"

She knew what the Ellimist was, or had some idea. A being with phenomenal
powers. He could alter time and space. He could bend the fabric of reality to
his will. He was one of the Masters of the Universe. He had been around for
eons and had basically more power than she could ever imagine.

"What do you want?" she asked.

The Ellimist looked at her. "I want to show you something." he said.

Rachel looked... what she saw amazed her. She watched a tall young man
walking in a dark and desolate landscape. He looked familiar. At once she
recognized him. It was her cousin Jake. What happened? Rachel looked at
the desolate world in the vision shown to her by the Ellimist. She knew
what happened. What she dreaded had come true. The Yeerks had won.

Jake was walking around, and there were some people around him. These people
looked scared and miserable, wandering around the remains of what was once a
great city. Jake looked a bit older than he did now. He was not a teenager
anymore. He was a grown man. Early twenties, if she wasn't mistaken. He was
scanning the landscape.

Out of nowhere came a large gorilla. Jake commanded the people around him
to halt. The large gorilla came closer. Jake looked at it. The gorilla
stopped... and something happened. The gorilla began to change. It shrank
in size. Its fur disappeared. It became slender. Its simian physique became
less animalistic and more... human. In seconds the gorilla had changed into
a tall young Hispanic man. Marco. Jake's best friend. Rachel watched them
with great sadness... they looked so miserable... so lost.

She watched as a spaceship appeared in the air. She recognized it. The Blade
ship. Visser Three's personal battleship. The vessel of the commander of the
Yeerk empire's armies. The wanderers looked up and saw the Blade ship.
Quickly they ran for cover. The Blade ship flew above them and opened fire.
The Dracon beams of the ship fired all over the terrain. The humans scattered
in all directions. The ship vaporized a young woman... and the man who ran by
her side. Rachel watched the massacre. It was eerie.... the death of people.
The Blade ship landed. Human-Controllers came out. They carried Dracon-beam
handguns with them. They looked around for the humans.

The Human-Controllers quickly rounded up the survivors. The survivors tried
to resist but most were in no shape to. All hope seemed to be lost... until
a large mountain gorilla and a Bengal tiger came charging side by side.
Rachel knew who they were. Marco was the Gorilla. Jake was the Bengal tiger.
The Human-Controllers seemed to panic. Then, they opened fire. The Animorphs
came at them... and the captured humans took advantage of the situation to
seize some weapons... one Human-Controller went down... then another. A
captured human went down... then another. Gorilla fists slammed into
controllers. Tiger paws lashed and rended... and then it was suddenly still.
Something came out of the Blade ship... and Rachel gasped... It was Visser
Three.

The evil Yeerk slug that inhabited the body of an Andalite war-Prince. The
only Yeerk with the power to Morph.

The Visser came and the fighting stopped. The Animorphs faced him. The
humans were trembling. The Human-Controllers flanked their leader. The Visser
walked toward these humans-turned-animals. The Animorphs. He asked them to
surrender. "Go fuck yourself." said Jake, in thought-speak.

"Screw you." said Marco.

The Animorphs faced the Visser. "Humans are such fools." he said. He began
to Morph. The Visser had began to change. Marco charged the remaining
Human-Controllers while Jake urged the captured humans to run. Jake, in
Bengal tiger morph faced the Visser. The Visser changed into a very strange
beast...

Something that was easily twenty feet tall, humanoid in shape and
brutish-looking. A creature with a strong, muscular body covered with fur.
Something simian, with red eyes and a mouth full of fangs. The creature's
huge arms ended in clawed hands. It stood on two large, solid legs. It
dwarfed the Human-Controllers, the humans and the Animorphs. All stared at
its horrendous, imperial image.

"Behold the Lugasor." said Visser Three. "It will be the end of you."

Jake and Marco stood facing the beast that Visser Three had become.

Rachel watched them. It was amazing to see. She knew that against such a
creature, a tiger and a gorilla didn't stand a chance. And yet the Animorphs
charged it. Jake leapt into the air and landed on the Visser's chest. The
beast grabbed the tiger's body and hurled it away. Jake fell, and lay still.
The beast bellowed victoriously and charged, coming at the fallen Animorph.
Rachel watched what she knew to be the end of Jake... no, wait. Marco came
charging to the rescue. The Gorilla leapt onto the Visser's back and started
to hammer him with blows thrown with superhuman strength. The Visser screamed
in pain. Marco slammed his fist between the Visser's eyes. The Visser
snatched Marco and threw him against the ground. Marco landed on his feet and
came right back at his colossal foe. The Visser took one thundering step
toward the Gorilla... tried to grab him... and Marco leapt, easily clearing
a distance of twenty feet and landing on the Visser's head. He slammed his
fist into the Visser's skull. The monster howled in pain.

On the ground, Jake was slowly coming to his senses. He looked at the fight
between Marco the Gorilla and the monster Visser Three had become. The
Gorilla was strong and fast but the decidedly larger and more powerful Visser
would triumph in the end. The Gorilla was snatched into huge hands and thrown
against the ground.....Jake leapt and his feline body slammed into Marco's
simian form. Jake screamed in pain. He had stopped Marco from falling but the
impact had shattered his ribs. The tiger lay on the ground, growling in pain.
The Gorilla's unconscious body lay next to it. The Visser came toward them...
stood looking over them.

"Today, you die." He said.

At this exact moment, a red-tailed hawk flew down from the skies and dove
straight into the Visser's left eye. The Visser howled in pain. Half-blind,
he tried to seize the bird that tormented him... the hawk was already far
away. The Visser's body was already healing. He looked at the Tiger and the
Gorilla... ready to finish them off. Rachel watched... knowing her friends
were about to die. There was nothing she could do. She looked at the
Ellimist. She was mad at him for showing her this.

"Why?" she shouted.

"Just watch!" he said.

Rachel watched. Something came out of practically nowhere. Make that several
somethings. An african elephant. A black panther. A rhinoceros. A north
american buffalo. Four beasts that normally wouldn't hang together. It could
only mean one thing... Animorphs!!! They charged the Visser. They attacked
him... they waded into the Human-Controllers. The Visser was strong, and his
body was resilient. His morph had already regenerated the organ he had lost
in confrontation with the red-tailed hawk. He ordered his troops to retreat.
He de-morphed and went back inside the Blade ship. He was not permitted to
make it. The elephant slammed into him... the Visser morphed into a strange
bird and flew away... and the Animorphs and humans alike cheered...

Rachel smiled. This was a big victory for the Animorphs. She looked as the
Animorphs and the recently freed human resistance members congratulated each
other on defeating the Visser. They were all jubilant. She watched the
Animorphs de-morph. She recognized Tobias as he went from red-tailed hawk to
slender youth. Cassie went from african elephant to brown-skinned african
american female. Aximili Esgarouth Isthill, the young Andalite warrior
changed from a rhinoceros to his usual, blue-skinned centaur-like alien self.
There were a couple of people that Rachel did not know. The black panther
became a tall young woman with red hair and a stern demeanor. The north
american buffalo became a skinny boy with freckles on his face. Alicia and
her brother James, the newest Animorphs.

Rachel was pleased by what she saw. The Ellimist looked at her. He snapped
his fingers and the vision of the future she had gotten vanished. Rachel
smiled. She was glad to see that her fellow Animorphs would be doing well in
the future, even if the world had almost been destroyed by the Yeerks.
Something puzzled her.

"How come I didn't see myself?" she asked.

Yeah. In the vision that the Ellimist had given her, she didn't see herself.
She saw Jake, Marco, Cassie and Tobias. She saw Ax and even Visser Three. Yet
she couldn't see herself. At all.

"Where was I?" she asked. "It's not like me to miss out in battles?"

She looked at the Ellimist expectantly. He looked at her, sadly, too. She
knew the answer even before he said it. "I'm dead." Rachel said.

"Yes." said the Ellimist. "And No."

"How can this be?" Rachel asked.

He showed her. The Ellimist showed her a disturbing vision. A young blonde
girl being taken to the Yeerk Pool. An alien parasite entering her ear and
taking over her mind and body. That girl was her. Rachel. The invincible
Rachel... a slave of the Yeerks. Rachel... the first Animorph-Controller.
She had been captured by the Yeerks. She had allowed herself to be taken
alive. She became host to Visser One, the leader of the Yeerk empire's
armies. The one Yeerk with more power than the evil Visser Three.

It was Visser One that ordered the Yeerks to cease the infiltration of
Earth and switch over to full-scale invasion. The Yeerk battleships invaded
the world and destroyed cities. They obliterated civilization. They killed
millions. They took over the world. Countless human beings were taken as
slaves of the Yeerks and turned into host bodies for the evil parasitic alien
slugs. Rachel watched as Visser Three returned to the Yeerk headquarters,
what was once Los Angeles, to tell his superior of his defeat.

Visser One had taken care of the problem herself. She sent the Garatron
after the Animorphs and the Human Resistance members. The Garatron was a
shapeshifting monstrosity bio-engineered by Yeerk scientists. It went
after the Animorphs... it's an omnivorous creature that can mimic the
appearance and abilities of anything it touches. The Garatron took on the
Animorphs... it wasn't a pretty sight.

Rachel shrieked in horror as she watched the Animorphs and the Human
Resistance members being devoured...ugh.

Rachel screamed so loud... NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Rachel woke up covered with sweat. She looked around frantically. She did not
know where she was. She struggled in the darkness but felt strong arms hold
onto her. She looked at Tobias. He looked so....wonderful. She gently put her
arms around him. He looked at her.

"What's wrong?" he asked. She just stared. "Nightmare?" he asked. Rachel
nodded. "Wanna talk about it?" he asked. Rachel hesitated. She shook her
head.

Tobias held Rachel in his arms and rocked her gently. Rachel felt safe in his
arms. She loved it when he held her. It was one of the things that she could
count on in the insane world that she lived in. Tobias... always there for
her. He had come to visit her earlier and she had fallen asleep. He stayed
awake to watch over her. She knew that he had to de-morph and re-morph
constantly. Every two hours. His true form was that of a red-tailed hawk. He
wasn't human anymore. His human side was just a morph. The Animorphs were
humans who temporarily became animals. He was an animal that temporarily
became human. Rachel rested her head against Tobias's chest. She could hear
his heartbeat.

Gently, Tobias kissed Rachel's forehead. She took his face in her hands and
kissed him passionately. Slowly, they undressed each other. They were young
lovers making love for the first time. Neither of them had ever made love
before. Their kisses and caresses became bolder. Tobias sucked on Rachel's
ripe young breasts. She moaned passionately. Her hands went over his body,
teasing, caressing, before finally reaching between his legs. She held his
cock in her hands and looked at it. She had never held one in her hands
before. She stroked it gently. Tobias's slim hand slipped between her thighs
and she gasped when his sleek fingers entered her. They did the mutual
masturbation thing until they quite accidentally triggered an orgasm for each
other.

The sensation was incredible for both of them. Once the feeling wore off,
they looked at each other. It was important that they become one. Tobias drew
Rachel into his arms and she came to him. He got on top of her and she put
her arms and legs around him. He looked right into her eyes. There was a need
there. An ancient and primal need. She read the same thing in his. He took
her. Tobias winced when his cock entered Rachel's pussy. He had never felt
anything like this before. Neither had she. He thrust into her, slowly. She
gasped. She felt a bit of pain as his cock tore into her hymen. He felt a
slight discomfort inside her warm tightness. They made love on the bed,
groaning and moaning passionately. Thrusting, screaming, gasping and moaning.
He thrust into her and she took him inside her eagerly. It was a need and
they craved each other. For a few more moments, they fucked each other. He
came inside her, and gasped as he did. Her eyes went wide when his warm seed
entered her. The feeling was over. He lay in her arms. Rachel just held him.
He looked at her. Both of them were completely blown away by what happened.

She looked toward the window, toward the pink rays of dawn clearing the
skies. She closed her eyes, knowing that he would have to leave. She did not
want him to go but would not ask him to. She didn't want to make him do
anything. She heard the sound of change, of wings flapping. Then... nothing.
When she opened her eyes, Tobias was gone. He had vanished. Utterly.

Rachel smiled sadly. What did she think? That he was gonna stay with her
forever? She was an Animorph. Mankind's only hope in a war against evil
aliens. She had responsibilities. So did he. Still... she was still a girl.
A warrior, a fighter, a powerful individual... and yet still a girl with
everything that she can feel. Like the longing for Tobias. She closed her
eyes again.